Once upon a time, the Ghostbusters were told that they could choose the form their destruction would take and, unable to keep his mind blank, Ray thought up what should have been the tool of their demise in the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Now it is our turn to decide. We all know that eventually we will create robots that will turn on us in a murderous fashion. We just get the chance to choose what we’ll be looking at when we’re on the short end of the genocide stick. While I would personally choose something along the lines of “target shaped” it seems the general consensus between the technology firms is bears. Robot bears.

First on the list is Vecna’s BEAR robot. The BEAR, or Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot, was created with the intent on going into areas too dangerous for real people (the example of an area under fire is commonly used) and retrieving injured personnel. Now it might just be me, but the last thing I’d want while being injured on the battlefield is to be lifted into the arms of a mechanical bear and be cradled through an area that is being riddled with enough bullets for a robot to be necessary to come get to me. That being said, it is easy to see it being useful in areas with explosive and biological threats. The interesting part about this robot is the tread design. Each leg has two treads which are located and move in much the same way as a human’s thigh and calf. The BEAR’s normal means of locomotion is a kind of kneeling position where the calf tread is parallel with the ground. It gets crazy when the robot stands up in a manner similar to a man with his feet chopped off standing on his ankles. Not to mention it can do this and maintain it’s balance while carrying up to 500lb loads. It is kind of reminiscent of how a real bear walks around on all fours then stands up on it’s hind legs when it gets pissed. Fortunately for us, the BEAR is remote controlled so it won’t be going terminator on us anytime soon (aside from the human with the remote going wild scenario of course). So where would we go to find a robot made in the image of a bear that can make decisions based on external stimulus?

The hospital of course. Because that is the natural place to put a 400lb metallic bear. It isn’t that big of a problem if someone gets hurt by it because they are already in a hospital! Freaking genius. This brilliant piece of machinery is brought to us by the Riken research center in Japan and called RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance). Designed to move around patients once the population ages to the point where there is a shortage of young people to help out our old. I would get the purpose of trying to make the robot look friendlier if it were being used for children. However, kids can be picked up easily and are too fragile to be swept up in the big robot arms. Maybe I am just misjudging the average human adult, but I feel like it is almost insulting to try and calm someone with a big happy bear face while a robot lays them on a table beside a tray of knives while someone pumps gas into them until they pass out.

-Wolverox

Tags: bear, robot, wolverox